


the greatest magic of them all

by leadlight



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leadlight/pseuds/leadlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they meet, it's in detention.<br/>(Harry Potter au)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_part one_

 

The first time they meet, it’s in detention.

Jiyong knows he should probably try to fix his sleeping habits before they get worse, but somehow inspiration always seems to strike him at around midnight: an idea for the next Hogwarts music club concert, a way to weave a spell into a song that had been eluding him, a new hex from Teddy-hyung that he had to write down. The cost of it, of course, is that the professor finally cracks it when he runs into Potions an hour late.

So here he is, trying to clean the grime off some of the castle’s mustiest windows with soap, water and a surly fellow detentionee. “Choi Seunghyun, Hufflepuff,” he introduces himself as in a deep voice, and then he doesn’t say much after that. Jiyong is initially impressed by the other boy’s heavy brows, but after several failed attempts at making conversation he decides that the dirt embedded in the windowsill is being more enthusiastic about his attention.

It’s maybe fifteen minutes before Seunghyun opens his mouth again. “What are you humming? It sounds familiar.”

Jiyong blinks; he hadn’t realised he’d been singing under his breath. “Uh, it’s—it’s Muggle music, actually—”

Seunghyun raises an eyebrow. “I’m a Muggle-born, actually. Sing it properly, I want to hear.”

Jiyong feels a little put on the spot, but he takes a deep breath and complies. At the chorus Seunghyun surprises him by joining in with perfect harmony.

“Hey, you’re not half bad,” Jiyong says, astonished. “Why aren’t you in the music club?”

“There’s a music club here?”

Jiyong stares at him open-mouthed. “Of course there’s a—where have you been the past two years?”

Seunghyun ducks his head in what Jiyong takes to be embarrassment, and he softens. “Well, I’m the captain, and I say you should join, the choir’s been needing a new bass for ages—I think our current one has an actual frog in his throat, no joke—”

“Mmm, I’ll think about it,” Seunghyun chuckles, dimples forming and seemingly at odds with his eyebrows. Jiyong feels a sudden warmth in his toes.

“Why’re you here, anyway? You don’t look like a bad kid. Were you serenading Mrs Norris, or something?”

“No, I overslept and was late to Potions. For like the sixth time. What about you?”

“Got caught napping in Astronomy class. Thought the darkness would be a good cover, but it turned out the teacher had night vision. Useless asset, if you ask me.”

Jiyong snorts, and is about to reply before Filch’s sneering voice cuts in from behind them with “I do hope all that talking means you’ve cleaned to my satisfaction, boys,” at which they both resume hastily. Filch breathes down their necks from then until the window is spotless, so it isn’t until they’re trudging back into the castle that Jiyong speaks again. “We practise every Tuesday evening at seven-thirty. Just—come if you can, alright?”

“Yes sir, of course sir.”

Jiyong narrows his eyes, but he decides to let it pass. “Music room’s on the fifth floor. Don’t forget.”

The following Tuesday’s rehearsal comes and goes with no sign of Seunghyun. Youngbae asks him where “this amazing bass singer” is, and Jiyong’s got no answer. He tells himself later that he shouldn’t have been expecting anything from that sort of reaction anyway.

 

***

The second time they meet, Jiyong nearly loses his life.

It’s his first Care of Magical Creatures class. They’re looking at Kneazles, and the teacher wants them to form pairs to groom and observe them. Jiyong’s one of two Ravenclaws in his year taking it, but Seungho is in the hospital wing with owl flu, so he’s surrounded by a bunch of mostly unfamiliar Hufflepuff students. Everyone starts to partner up as Jiyong looks around rather disconsolately, wishing Seungho or Youngbae were there.

“Hey, choir boy,” says a deep voice behind him, and Jiyong turns to see a smirking Seunghyun.

“Hey!” Jiyong responds. “You never showed up to practice.” He tries not to sound too accusatory.

“Yeah, about that…” Seunghyun raises a hand to the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I couldn’t find the music room.”

Jiyong feels like smacking him. “You could’ve just asked someone to show you where it was.”

“Well, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to join anyway. Don’t know if it’s really my thing.”

“How do you know that? You didn’t even know there was one before I told you.”

Seunghyun doesn’t reply, just looks into middle distance as if there’s something very interesting over Jiyong’s left shoulder. The atmosphere is getting awkward, and Jiyong considers and dismisses several things he might say before he settles with, “Look, do you want to be partners for this, then?” which at least returns the grin to Seunghyun’s face.

Ten minutes later, however, Jiyong is half regretting his decision. The Kneazle they are meant to be looking after seems to have a particular aversion to Seunghyun, and is prone to lashing out with its claws whenever he comes near. Seunghyun’s hands are soon covered with shallow scratches, and Jiyong looks as though he’s dragged his robes through a thornbush.

“Maybe you should stand behind me, I think it likes me better,” Jiyong says. “Who’s a good boy? There’s a good boy,” he coos at the feline, which is the size of a small lion.

“I thought this one’s a girl?” Seunghyun says grumpily as he steps away on exaggerated tiptoe. It’s a bad move: Seunghyun stumbles over a hump in the grass, and treads heavily on the Kneazle’s bushy tail, making it rear up with a yowl and make a dash for the trees.

“Hey—wait! Come back here!” Jiyong sprints madly after the Kneazle as it scurries away. He can vaguely hear Seunghyun shouting something behind him. The beast is nimbler than he’d given it credit for, forcing Jiyong to leap over roots and boulders in hot pursuit. He rounds a large oak in time to see it skid to an abrupt stop, before it turns around and runs back to him. “Good girl—oof!”

Jiyong sits up, cursing inwardly; the Kneazle had bowled him over in its return flight. Stupid cat, he thinks, shaking his head, when he hears a distinct rustling noise from ahead of him. Jiyong looks up, and has just enough time to realise that he chased the Kneazle into the Forbidden Forest, before he sees a dark shape materialise before him and his brain freezes over.

Somehow the creature goes from being a yard away to fucking looming over him, and Jiyong sees fangs and dark matted fur before he shuts his eyes, paralysed with terror. There’s no flashing of life events, just damp breath against his face and neck and _will it be painful oh fuck I’m going to die I’m going to die—_

There’s a shout and a loud crack from somewhere towards his left, and miraculously he feels the breath and weight lift off him. The sound of padding steps fades away into silence. Jiyong cracks open an eyelid, and there’s no monster, just Seunghyun, looking down at him with wide eyes.

“Holy mother of Merlin’s balls,” gasps Jiyong, his heart still racing. “What did you do? Where did it go?”

“Uh, I don’t even know what spell I used—I was going for ‘stupefy’, but all it did was send a good lot of smoke through those trees. The thing ran away into the smoke though, so it worked. What was it anyway?”

“Don’t know, I was too busy preparing for imminent death. You got a better look at it than me. Was it a werewolf or something?”

Seunghyun pales. “Maybe it was, I dunno. I’m not too good at identifying beasts, could’ve been a Yeti for all I know. We’d better get back in case it returns.”

Jiyong’s not sure he can move, but Seunghyun reaches a hand out to him, and somehow he grabs it and pulls himself up on shaky legs.

“You okay? It didn’t hurt you?”

“I don’t think so.” Jiyong brushes himself off. “Come on, let’s go.”

They hurry back through the forest, Seunghyun helping Jiyong along on his still unsteady feet. In a few minutes they reach the edge of the trees (we didn’t actually go in that far, Jiyong realises) and are back in the bright sunlight and their rowdy classmates, who are still absorbed in looking after their Kneazles. No one seems to have noticed their absence.

The normal scene is jarring after what just happened, and Jiyong feels as though he Portkeyed briefly to another dimension. He glances at Seunghyun and can tell that he’s feeling it, too. They return to their own Kneazle—now very docile—and neither of them speak until the teacher calls out, beaming, “Okay team, it’s time to start finishing up! I hope you’ve all learnt at least one new thing today, even if it’s just a new appreciation for these wonderful creatures.”

“Yeah, I learnt that I’m a dog person, because they tend to not lead you into mortal danger,” Seunghyun mutters under his breath.

Jiyong looks at him, and maybe it’s the after-effects of shock, but he starts giggling hysterically.

“Hey, stop that. Or the Professor will actually notice we exist,” Seunghyun whispers, and Jiyong laughs harder, his body folded over and trembling with suppressed mirth.

“I can’t believe no one even noticed us running into the Forbidden Forest,” he says, wiping his eyes.

“Maybe they were having their own little adventures in other parts of the Forest.”

“Yeah, and we just missed them, because they ran the other way from us—”

“—that’s why that monster left you alone, it smelled all the other runaway Kneazles and got confused—”

“—yeah that’s right, because as if a failed Stunning Spell would actually draw it off, like what the hell.”

“Hey, I saved your life with that spell. If I hadn’t been there—”

“—it wouldn’t have run off in the first place, and I wouldn’t have had a near-death experience.”

Seunghyun’s face falls slightly, and Jiyong smothers a fresh wave of laughter. “Hey, cheer up. You’re still my hero.”

This is how they become friends. It’s only confirmed the next Tuesday, when (after having personally escorted him to the music room) Jiyong finally hears that rumbling tone blend into the tapestry of lighter voices, rounding out the swell of harmony. He gives Seunghyun a subtle thumbs up when their eyes meet, and is rewarded with a pair of waggling eyebrows, causing him to fight to maintain a straight face for the rest of the rehearsal.

 

***

When he’s not in class, Jiyong is more often than not in the music room, tinkering around on the piano as he scribbles lyrics, or fixes up orchestral arrangements. He’s in the middle of a harmonising rut one day when Seunghyun pops his head in the door.

“Hey, Daesung’s got a load of Fizzing Whizzbees in his room if you want to—wait, what happened to your hair?”

Jiyong blinks. “This? Oh, I was getting bored of the previous one.” He tugs a brightly orange-coloured strand in front of his eyes and stares at it critically. “Now that I look at it though, it’s not really what I was after—” and he frowns hard for a few seconds, as though he’s trying to remember something important, before letting go of the strand—now white-blond. Seunghyun stares at him, then blurts out, “You—how did you—are you a Metamorphmagus?”

“Yeah,” says Jiyong, flipping up the piano lid to check his reflection in the mirrored underside, “but that’s about the extent of what I can do. My grandmother, she could transform her nose, mouth, even her ears. I can only really change my hair around.”

“That’s still pretty cool,” says Seunghyun. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to change your face, would you? It’s fine as it is.”

“Thanks,” Jiyong says, grinning to hide the funny curling sensation in his stomach. His gaze falls back onto the papers in front of him, and he puffs out a sigh. “Not going well?” Seunghyun asks, leaning on the piano.

“It’s going fine. Well, I’m kind of stuck right now, but—it’s fine.”

“If you want any help… I don’t know if I can do much. But I can try.”

Jiyong’s about to shoot him down, but then he sees the slightly hesitant look on Seunghyun’s face, and something inside him loosens. He pauses, then before he can take it back, “Take a look at it and tell me what you think,” and he moves sideways on the stool to make room for the other boy. Jiyong gathers up the sheaf of parchment covered with spidery notation and sets it on the piano, gives it a flick with his wand, and the strains of an orchestra burst forth from the keys. The sound’s getting tinny, Jiyong notes; the piano’s going to need maintenance at some point.

Seunghyun listens intently, his head cocked in concentration, and when the last chord fades out he suggests transposing a few bars of the coda up an octave. They work back and forth for a while, until Jiyong actually feels partway satisfied (and secretly rather impressed). He’s a little stunned to realise that they’ve been going for more than an hour, and turns to tell Seunghyun so, only to find him perusing something scrawled on the back of one of the manuscript sheets.

“Did you write this?” he asks, looking up. “Are these lyrics?”

“Uh, yes and yes. I was just fooling around a bit, got inspired by this Muggle song I heard at a friend’s place—”

“Can you sing it now? I want to hear it.”

Feeling a little self-conscious, Jiyong raps out the first few lines of what he’s written with as much attitude as he can muster. When he looks up, Seunghyun’s intense eyes are trained on him. The air between them is silent for a few seconds, before Jiyong looks away and mumbles, “I know it sounds sort of weird, but I only heard it that one time and it’s really hard to find any wizard music that sounds similar—”

Seunghyun suddenly jumps up, eyes alight. “I’ve got to show you something. Don’t move.”

He rushes out of the room, leaving Jiyong sitting puzzled until he returns with a small rectangular device in his hand.

“What’s that?”

“It’s an iPod—it’s like, a Muggle machine for listening to music on the go. My parents gave it to me for my birthday last year,” Seunghyun says as he unwinds long white strings from the knot they’re tangled in. Jiyong sees buds at the ends and guesses them to be earphones. “I don’t think the wizarding world’s got portable music players as such—or if they do I don’t know about them—so I put all my music on here, and just tinker with it magically to suit my tastes.” He stuffs a bud into Jiyong’s ear. “I’ve been listening to this one non-stop for the past week.”

Seunghyun presses a button on the device. Record-scratch, thumping beats, and then Nas is chanting _the world is yours, the world is yours_ into Jiyong’s ear. Jiyong sits up and absorbs it for a few moments, the words coursing through him, _the beats make me fallin’ asleep, I’m fallin’ but never fallin’ six feet deep_ , before he looks up and sees the same elation he’s feeling reflected in Seunghyun’s eyes.

By the time the next track starts up, Jiyong is brimming with ideas, and he can’t hold it in any longer. Seunghyun listens to him ramble for a few moments before he interrupts. “So this is what I reckon. I reckon you should make this longer, make it into a complete song.”

“You really think so?”

“I do. And when you’ve finished it, I reckon you should perform it at the concert.”

Jiyong fidgets with the sleeve of his robes to hide his excitement. “Do you think people would like it, though? Most of them wouldn’t have heard this kind of—rap?—music before.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who really cares what people like.”

“I do care a little bit,” Jiyong says. He tries and fails to keep a grin off his face. “That’s why you’re going to be performing it with me. If I go down in flames, then you do too.”

“Is that right?” Seunghyun smiles widely, not bothering to hide his amusement. “What if I can’t keep up with you?”

“You don’t have to. You just have to balance me out. You’ll be fine at that.”

“Okay, maestro,” says Seunghyun, giving him a mock salute. “It’s a deal.”

 

***

Jiyong finishes the song. He and Seunghyun perform it at the Halloween concert, Youngbae and the rest of the music club rocking out in the front row of the cheering crowd. For the next couple of weeks they’re the talk of the school. “Dude, that was ah-ma-zing. Knocked my socks off.” “Never heard anything like it, but I love it.” “Did you really write and compose it? Sweet Merlin, you’re a genius.” “Wouldn’t be surprised if the Weird Sisters’ agent comes knocking at your door.”

It’s wonderful, and Jiyong rides the high of appreciation—no, he floats on it. That is, until someone starts circulating a year old recording of an up-and-coming wizard musician with similar rapid-fire beats. Then the insidious rumours begin: _Dude, I heard he copied the song. Wow, they sounded so similar. It can’t be a coincidence. Isn’t this, like, illegal? Scamming off someone—that kind of thing should get you expelled._

Jiyong’s loved Hogwarts since he first raised his face to the starry, arching ceiling of the Great Hall. He’s always felt comfortable and accepted here—popular, even. But for the first time in his life, he feels like an outcast. Whispers and covert glances follow him down corridors, people steer away from him as though he’s a gargoyle with giant blood, and one morning Jiyong wakes and decides he can’t take it anymore.

He doesn’t notice the time passing as he lies in his four-poster, formulating in his head a plan for running away, so it’s a surprise when footsteps approach his bed and the curtains are unceremoniously ripped open. Jiyong blinks up, and scowls when he sees Seunghyun looking down at him. “You weren’t at Care of Magical Creatures,” Seunghyun says.

Jiyong rolls over to face away, hoping that will get rid of the other boy, but there’s a dip in the bed, and he knows Seunghyun isn’t going to leave him alone this time. “How did you get in?” Jiyong gripes. “You’re not allowed here. This is the Ravenclaw dormitory.”

“There’s no specific rule against visiting other houses’ dorms, as far as I know—well maybe there is, but whatever. And I got the password off Seungho. Youngbae would’ve crashed with me, but since you’ve been studiously avoiding him every time he tries to talk to you, he thought I should try alone first.” He pauses. “You’ve been studiously avoiding me, too, but that wasn’t going to stop me.”

“I haven’t been avoiding anyone,” says Jiyong crossly. “It’s other people who avoid _me_.”

“You know, you sound like that Slytherin kid Seungri right now. How did you describe him that one time? Let’s see: whiny and self-absorbed, I believe those were your exact words.”

Jiyong shuts his eyes. “If you came to make me feel better, you’re doing a pretty shitty job of it.”

There’s a beat of silence before Seunghyun speaks again. “Look, Jiyong, this is all just a stupid rumour that the school is going to forget in a few weeks when the next stupid rumour comes along, that’s just how people operate, whether they’re magic or not.” Jiyong feels a hand touch his shoulder. “I know it sucks balls when you feel like the world’s against you, but you should remember that Hogwarts isn’t the world, and it’s not necessarily the truth. The ones who matter are the ones on your side, always.”

Both his tone and his hand are warm, and Jiyong unwillingly opens his eyes to Seunghyun’s sympathetic expression. Part of him wants to keep on snarking, but even he can recognise how bratty that would be. He settles for a gruff “Thanks,” instead.

“Don’t mention it. Now, are you going to keep lying here thinking of ways to run away, or are you going to get up and start taking part in life again?”

Jiyong’s eyes widen. Seunghyun starts chuckling that stupid throaty laugh of his, the one that comes out when he thinks he’s scored a point of some kind.

“Screw you,” mutters Jiyong. He heaves a sigh. “I guess I should stop wallowing and try fight back, or something.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Seunghyun, clapping him on the shoulder. “Show them who’s boss.”

“Or perhaps I should just lie low, let it all blow over first.”

“That’s—also the spirit. It’s wise to stay out of conflict.”

“What is this, hyung? Make up your bloody mind,” Jiyong says, grinning. The stiffness in his cheeks coupled with the flash of relief in Seunghyun’s eyes tell him just how long it’s been since he last smiled.

“At least do something about your hair. Long, black and greasy went out of vogue ages ago.” Seunghyun gives a lopsided smirk. “Or there’s this thing called a bath, you might have heard of it.”

“Wanker,” says Jiyong, hitting him with a pillow, but he’s laughing now, and Seunghyun’s laughing too, eyes and dimples bright, and it feels good, it feels on the way to normal. _You can do this_ , he thinks. _You’re strong enough to do this. The world is yours._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lyrics are from 'The World Is Yours' by Nas (from his Illmatic album).


	2. Chapter 2

_part two_

 

Seunghyun has an irrational fear of brooms, and thus an inherent aversion to Quidditch, so it takes all of Jiyong’s powers of persuasion to wheedle him into watching him play. Jiyong doesn’t see himself as any sort of Quidditch pro—that’s Youngbae for you—but he’s not a bad player, and he enjoys it, the soaring sensation when he flies similar to the feeling he gets when he’s performing music, that same rush of pure exhilaration.

Only this particular match, he finally falls prey to the fouling that he’d always prided himself on being nimble enough to avoid. Two Slytherin Chasers hem him in before their Beaters let fly, and then Jiyong’s spiralling towards the ground with what feels like a broken wrist. How am I going to play the piano now? flashes through his head before he blacks out from the pain.

Jiyong drifts back into consciousness to the white ceiling of the hospital wing, and the worried faces of Seunghyun and Youngbae hovering over him. “I assume we didn’t win, then?” he says, blinking up at them. They both sigh audibly.

“Man, you really scared us that time,” says Youngbae, shaking his head.

“Don’t do that again, okay?” Seunghyun says, and if Jiyong thinks he can detect a slight tremble in that deep voice, he immediately dismisses it, and the strange little swoop in his stomach that comes with it.

“Alright, hyung,” he says instead. Then Daesung bursts in noisily with a “Pretty bad fouling, eh, Jiyong-hyung? I got you some Chocoballs to cheer you up,” and Seunghyun pouts, “Why don’t you bring me sweets when I’m sick?”—“I used to, but after that time with the blue Every Flavour Bean you said I wasn’t to be trusted”—and Jiyong forgets all about it. Only part of him doesn’t forget, but files that moment away in a hidden, locked drawer with other moments, sparse and yet individually luminescent, like single unicorn hairs.

 

***

When people start talking about partners for the Yule Ball, Jiyong naturally thinks of Chaerin—a Gryffindor in the year below him, but already a driving force in the music club. He sees the same passion and take-no-bullshit attitude in her that he sees in himself, plus he thinks she’s cute (especially whenever she takes over his job of bullying Seungri). Chaerin says yes, and Jiyong spends the rest of the time leading up to the ball being Youngbae’s wingman. However, Dara’s got the kind of face that attracts multiple admirers, so by the time Jiyong’s managed to pump Youngbae up with enough courage to ask her, she’s already taken.

But Jiyong can’t spend the whole night trying to cheer his friend up: he’s here to party, and he and Chaerin are soon tearing up the dancefloor, other couples scurrying to move out of their way. Seunghyun doesn’t, though; he stays nearby with his own partner—Bom, an attractive leggy Hufflepuff fifth year—and churns out his particular brand of boogie moves like there’s no tomorrow, and like there’s no limit to the amount of times he can make Jiyong collapse with laughter.

Later on, Jiyong and Chaerin sit under one of the bushes outside, and talk about school, the music club, whether Jiyong’s hair (a messy bubblegum pink) actually complements Chaerin’s fiery red dress robes (“maybe if you want us to look like a bastardized Valentine, Jiyongie”). And when there’s an appropriate lull in the conversation, Jiyong leans forward and presses his lips gently to Chaerin’s. They make out for a few minutes, before she pulls away with a slightly wistful smile on her face. “What?” he says.

“Nothing, just…” She pauses, fiddling with the scalloped edge of her sleeve. “This was nice. You’re fun, and nice. I always knew that. But…we’re just gonna keep being friends after this, yeah?”

Jiyong feels a bit confused, he’s not sure where this is going. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Good. I like you, Jiyong, don’t get me wrong. I just think I’m better as a friend to you—now, at least.”

Jiyong opens his mouth to ask what she means, but then he sees her looking past him to where he knows Seunghyun and Bom are sitting, several bushes down, and he suddenly feels that he’s better off not understanding.

 

***

“Aw, hyung, please. I heard you topped the class for Transfiguration last year. Please look at it.”

“I’m going to need more convincing than that.”

“I’ll help put up your concert posters in the Slytherin common room.”

Jiyong scoffs. “There’s other Slytherins I know who’ll do that without wasting my time.”

“I’ll give you my new hat. The one that changes colour according to your outfit.”

Jiyong struggles for a second, then sits down with a sigh and pulls the parchment towards him. Seungri crows in victory.

“You’re going to shut up, or I will curse your essay instead of correcting it.”

Seungri quietens down rather quickly. For a few minutes the only sounds are murmured conversations at other tables in the hall, and Jiyong’s quill scratching away.

“Wow, I haven’t seen these yet.”

Jiyong looks up to see Seungri holding one of the draft posters for the next concert. It’s a copy that focuses on Seunghyun, a large black and white picture of him staring broodingly outwards and making occasional smirks. Jiyong had, after looking through them all, placed that one on the top of the pile on the table. He doesn’t want to think too closely about why.

“Man, Seunghyun’s the absolute shit.” Seungri has reached the stage where he feels daring enough to swear at every opportunity. “Hyung,” Jiyong corrects automatically. “Seunghyun-hyung.”

“Seunghyun-hyung. He’s really cool, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Jiyong says casually, his quill pausing for a second before scratching away once more.

“He’s probably why I joined the music club in the first place, you know. It was after I saw him rapping at that one concert. He didn’t take a breath for five minutes straight, I counted. Man, all the girls were going crazy.”

“He learnt that breathing spell off me, you know,” Jiyong says, sourly.

“Really? Could you teach me? I could use it to—”

“—talk more than you already do? Not a chance in hell.”

Seungri descends into grumbling under his breath, and Jiyong continues correcting the essay without further comment. He raps Seungri over the head with the rolled up parchment when he’s done, to effusive praise.

“Oh hyung, you’re the best,” gushes Seungri as he stands. “Seriously, you’re amazing.”

“Who’s amazing?” Seunghyun drops out of nowhere into the seat next to Jiyong, making him start.

“You are, hyung,” Seungri turns adoring eyes onto Seunghyun, and Jiyong wants to kick him. “We were just talking about you, actually—”

“Don’t forget your side of the bargain, Seungri,” Jiyong cuts in, rolling his eyes.

“So you were talking about me being amazing, were you?” grins Seunghyun, and now Jiyong wants to kick both of them.

“I’ll give you the hat tomorrow at rehearsal, hyung, don’t worry. I’m a man of my word,” and Seungri does a little pirouetting bow before he skips away with his essay in hand. Jiyong blows out his cheeks in frustration, then remembering who’s still sitting next to him, he begins busying himself with opening up his composition notebook and poring over it.

“So the great Kwon Jiyong is accepting bribes to do others’ homework now?”

“Only if it’s worth my while,” Jiyong says, keeping his eyes on the parchment pages before him. He prods at one with his wand and a few quavers rearrange themselves jerkily.

“What would I have to do to make it worth your while, then?” Seunghyun’s voice sounds deeper than usual, and Jiyong controls a shiver.

“You wouldn’t have to do much,” Jiyong says, biting his lip; then, “sorry, I’ve got to go back to my common room now, loads of homework—see you at rehearsal,” and he’s standing and gathering his stuff into his arms. And Seunghyun says, “Okay, see you, don’t work too hard,” and then Jiyong’s walking away, like he always does.

People sometimes tell Jiyong that he’s original and different and unexpected, and while Jiyong half agrees with them (what else would you expect from an aspiring musical Metamorphmagus), he knows that he’s really a creature of habit. Once he picks something up, it becomes a routine, almost: counting the beads on his lucky bracelet before every performance and exam, inking out random melodies on the back of his notes whenever he’s bored in class. And lately, he’s been catching himself breaking down the timbre of Seunghyun’s voice into the sounds of the world around him: the roar and crackle of the common room fire, the low-pitched hooting of the owls as they fly through each morning, even in an imaginary rumbling soundtrack to the noiseless thunderstorms he watches playing out on the Great Hall’s enchanted ceiling.

He’s not sure if it counts, though, when you’re pretending it’s not happening.

 

***

Umbridge’s suffocating regime has descended upon the school, and everyone is feeling it—Jiyong in particular. When the squat, toad-faced teacher had denounced music (among other things) as “a harmful influence on the young witches and wizards of tomorrow”, he was instantly up in arms. Youngbae says that he’s going to get white hair early from all the times Jiyong acts with utter disregard of his own safety, but Jiyong feels he can’t do otherwise when it comes to the things he really believes in.

So Jiyong is especially sensitive these days, and it’s not helped by the fact that his beloved music club—his usual source of relief—is fast becoming the opposite, thanks to Seunghyun’s increasingly distracting presence. The hearing-Seunghyun’s-voice-everywhere thing has not disappeared (if anything, it’s gotten worse). Add to that the stress of OWL preparation, and Jiyong wonders how he manages to get out of bed every morning.

Rehearsal is more difficult today than usual. After the High Inquisitor’s latest speech on her plans to shut down “extra-curricular societies that contribute little to magical education”, everyone feels like their days are numbered, and it’s showing. Jiyong is determined to break barriers with their next performance, but the current energy in the room is barely enough to boost a Flobberworm.

“Guys, come on.” Jiyong runs a frustrated hand through his hair, which is dark red and spiky today. “I’ve been stressing dynamics for the past fifteen minutes, and some of you are still playing the whole thing at forte. And not one of you are sub-dividing right now.”

“What’s the point,” mutters Seungri, his viola twanging with a similarly disgruntled note. “We’re not going to last long anyway.”

Jiyong rubs his temples and fights the urge to chew on his fingernails, already bitten down to the quick. “This is why we’re not getting anywhere—you guys aren’t taking this seriously. Sure, there are a lot of restrictions on us, but that’s exactly why we need to work at this and show that we haven’t been affected. The concert is in a week, people. One fucking week.”

“Relax, Jiyong, we’ll be fine,” Seunghyun says mildly. “Maybe if you could chill a bit, you’d feel better.”

“Maybe if you could grow up and focus for just once, we’d actually start sounding somewhat acceptable,” Jiyong snaps back.

Seunghyun’s mouth settles into a hard line. He doesn’t respond, but turns away and flips his sheet music back to the beginning.

“Let’s go one more time then,” says Jiyong, trying to ignore the guilty twinge in his chest. Out of the corner of his eye he can sense Chaerin giving him a look. He pretends he doesn’t see it.

They run it through three more times before Jiyong claims some measure of satisfaction, and everyone packs up in a hurry to get back to their dormitories. Seunghyun, however, hangs back. The guilty twinge has reached breaking point now, so Jiyong turns to him and mutters, “Look, I’m sorry about what I said before—”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Um, you are?”

“I mean properly. Here—” and before Jiyong knows what’s happening, Seunghyun is dragging him out of the practice room and down the hallway. He opens the door of a classroom, checks that it’s empty and whisks Jiyong inside.

Jiyong’s already talking as Seunghyun spins him round to stand face to face. “Listen, I said I was sorry…”

“What do you see me as?”

“I—huh?”

“I don’t know where I stand with you,” Seunghyun says impatiently. “I know you’re stressed out lately by that Umbridge woman, but something else is going on. I’m just trying to help you, but you’re not letting me. You’re pushing me away for each time that you pull me in.” The last words are said almost hesitantly. Jiyong doesn’t know whether he should ignore them, whether he can ignore them.

“I don’t know where I stand with you,” he shoots back, to gain time. “You’re trying to help me? More like you won’t leave me alone, so I keep having to push you away or else—” He stops short.

“Or else what?”

“Or else…you won’t leave me alone, um. Yeah.” Jiyong is fumbling. He can feel the heat rising in his cheeks.

“What do you see me as?” Seunghyun repeats. There’s a strange look on his face that Jiyong can’t quite define; it’s somewhere between expectant and exasperated.

“You’re—my friend. My good friend.” His voice sounds hollow even to him.

“Yeah, okay. Is that all?”

“Wait. I mean,” Jiyong bites his lip. What did he mean, exactly. “I mean—”

Seunghyun doesn’t let him finish, yanking on the front of his robes and bringing them a charged heartbeat apart, before crushing their mouths together, all tangled lips and teeth. Jiyong can only think of how he’d been purposely not daydreaming about this scenario for months—maybe longer—before his mind kind of goes blank and all he can concentrate on is the slick scrape of Seunghyun’s tongue, the warmth of his hands, in his hair and at the small of his back.

A loud bang makes them break apart, and Jiyong turns unwillingly to see their intruder. His stomach plummets when he sees the bow atop of the disgusted expression on the toad-like face.

 

***

_I must not kiss boys._  
I must not kiss boys.  
I must not… 

Jiyong squeezes his eyes shut briefly. He can still see the words imprinted in the darkness of his eyelids, matching the fire on the back of his hand.

“I think the message has gotten through now, don’t you think?” says that loathsome, breathy voice.

 _I think you should go fuck yourself._ Jiyong refuses to look down or away, sees his intense dislike reflected in pale eyes. He leaves Umbridge’s office repeating those words in his head like a mantra, turns the corner and nearly runs into Seunghyun, who pushes off the wall he’s been leaning on.

“You okay? What’d she do to you?”

“Oh…she made me write lines.” Jiyong can see Seunghyun’s hands, and they’re smooth and unmarred. He’s not sure what this means. “What about you? What’d she make you do?” he asks carefully, keeping his own hand out of Seunghyun’s line of vision.

“Just lines? Man, you got off lucky,” moans Seunghyun. “She made me massage her feet.”

“She—what?!”

“I know. Most traumatising thirty minutes of my life. I don’t know what I did to deserve such a fate.”

 _I do_ , Jiyong thinks as he looks up at Seunghyun’s chiselled jaw, those piercing dark eyes that have been the cause of weak knees in more than a few female students. And teachers, too. He feels cold.

“Hey, is that all she made you do, though?” Seunghyun’s voice cuts through his head. “You look a bit odd.”

“I’m fine.” He can feel blood trickling down his fingers to splash on the floor.

“You don’t look fine.”

“I said, I’m fi—”

“Wait, what’s that on your hand?”

Jiyong tries to hide his hand behind his back, but Seunghyun pulls it forward. He looks at it for a long moment. Jiyong can’t read his expression. Maybe he doesn’t want to.

Seunghyun only looks at him when Jiyong can’t take it anymore and pries his hand from his grasp.

“I’m going to talk to her.”

Jiyong feels a sudden burst of hot anger in his chest. “Like hell you will.”

“I’m going to give her a piece of my mind, no, not just a piece, the whole fucking tea set.”

“And then what? You want to give her another foot massage after that?”

Seunghyun flinches visibly, but Jiyong doesn’t care. “As if I wasn’t forced to—”

“Of course you were forced. Under a fucking Imperius curse I bet.” Jiyong knows he’s being unreasonable, but it’s hard to fight against the tight ball of emotions in the back of his throat. “Too bad she didn’t put me under one, at least then I would’ve only felt the pain afterwards.”

Seunghyun’s only marginally better at hiding his flinch this time. “Listen, Jiyong, we’ve got to report this, this is definitely not allowed. It’s—she’s sick and twisted—”

“Do you honestly think,” spits Jiyong, “that anyone will listen to what we might say?”

Seunghyun is silent.

“Say we do go to someone,” says Jiyong. “What are they going to do? Fire her? She’s got the whole board of teachers under her thumb and they know it. And do you think they won’t ask for an explanation of what’s written on my hand?”

He’s shaking. Seunghyun reaches a hand forward, but Jiyong steps out of reach. “All she needs to do is start talking about protecting Hogwarts from deviants and I’ll be expelled before you know it.”

Seunghyun opens his mouth, but Jiyong suddenly decides he doesn’t want to hear it. “Stay away from me,” he gets out, before he turns on his heel and hurries away down the corridor, carrying with him the stricken look on Seunghyun’s face all the way up the staircase, down the stone hallway, into the common room—deserted and still at this late hour. He sinks down onto the windowseat of one of the room’s bay windows and brings his knees up to his chest, trying to blink away the pricking in his eyes. Slowly his rage ebbs away, until all that’s left is weariness and the razor-like pain on his hand, each throb seemingly more mocking than the last.

 

***

Jiyong covers his hands up with gloves until the scars have healed up and faded, citing a nasty Bubotuber-inflicted injury as the cause to anyone who asks. The concert and the music club get cancelled by Umbridge, of course. No one feels the sense of bitter defeat more keenly than he does, but Jiyong can’t deny that a small part of him feels hollow relief. It makes it easier to avoid certain people.

A few weeks pass, then a month, and Jiyong tells himself he’s doing well. He goes through past OWL papers with Seungho and Soohyuk and the other Ravenclaw guys. He practises spells and charms with Youngbae. He stays out of conflict, doesn’t let his focus waver. It’s all batshit, but Jiyong somehow convinces himself that if he studies hard enough, he can forget about feeling anything. This lasts all the way up to the night before the first OWL, when Jiyong creeps into the Gryffindor dormitory and shakes Youngbae awake, to tell him calmly that he might just be having a nervous breakdown.

The next thing he knows, Jiyong’s waking in the morning in his bed and wondering if it was a dream.

“No, it wasn’t, unfortunately,” Youngbae says drily when he asks at breakfast. “I just fed you a Sleeping Potion. Only a few drops of course—knowing you, the whole dose would’ve had you waking up next Christmas.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, man.”

“S’okay. Probably needed the last minute Potions practice anyway.”

Somehow they make it through the week, and as if they’re being rewarded for their endurance, the news filters through that Umbridge’s days are over. The day that she is finally ousted coincides with the last day of OWLs, and everyone returns to their common rooms afterwards to celebrate—everyone, that is, except those in the know about the illicit crate of Firewhiskey that Seungho had somehow smuggled in. To keep the precious booze secret, the party was taking place in the Room of Requirement, which had obliged with squishy couches, booming stereo, dark intimate corners, and even some handy cast-iron buckets for puking into.

As most of the people there had never tried anything stronger than Butterbeer, the party is already starting to reach that twilight zone between halfway buzzed and completely trashed. Daesung’s bright smile doesn’t waver as he cusses away like a filthy sea-hag, while Bom keeps magnifying her voice so it’s five times louder than normal. Youngbae is sneaking up on people to hit them with the Tarantellegra spell, but keeps hitting himself instead. Seungri, meanwhile, is attempting to cast love charms on anyone and everyone who’s female in the room. _That one’s not that different from when he’s sober_ , Jiyong thinks, amused.

Perhaps it’s the exhaustion hitting him after that final OWL, but he feels content to sit on a sofa and watch the party going on around him, instead of being at the centre like he usually is. Jiyong takes another sip of his own Firewhiskey, feeling the burn travel all the way from his throat down into his gut. It’s not the first time he’s tried it—that would have been a memorable night in fourth year hanging out with Seungho, and Teddy and Kush from the years above—but it’s not giving him the fiery high that he remembers from that time. His friends come by one by one to engulf him in drunken hugs, to urge him to dance. All of them come but one, and if Jiyong’s being completely honest with himself, it’s that one who’s the reason why he came to the party at all, no matter how much he told himself otherwise.

Few things are louder than a bunch of teenage witches and wizards armed with alcohol, and yet Jiyong can still somehow pick out one mahogany thread from the thicket of noise. And it would be just like the Room of Requirement to play a dirty trick like this, to distort the architecture and planes of sound so that no matter where he turns his head, he can still hear that voice, still see Seunghyun at the edge of his vision. Seunghyun chatting with people, taking a swig from his drink, moving through the maze of couches. Seunghyun everywhere, but nowhere.

Jiyong’s feeling numb, and he wants to go to bed. He gets up wearily and starts moving towards the exit; there’s a few half-hearted slaps on his back, but everyone’s too drunk to really care.

“Running away’s a bit cliché by now, don’t you think?”

Jiyong stops, and all the feeling returns to his body with a vengeance. He turns slowly. Looks at him directly for the first time in over a month, and maybe that’s why he suddenly feels so unsteady.

“But I’m a sucker for clichés,” Jiyong says, the words coming out in a slur. _Fuck_ , he thinks, the Firewhiskey must be having more of an effect than he’d thought.

Seunghyun doesn’t smile. “Go on, then. Nobody’s stopping you.”

Jiyong feels a different sort of burn deep inside him at those words, infinitely more painful than liquor. But what was he expecting, really? You did this to yourself.

And perhaps he would have walked out then, and maybe it would have ended there, because Jiyong is a coward. But he’s a drunk coward, and that gives him enough courage to look Seunghyun in the eye once more. And much as he thinks he is, Jiyong’s never been good at hiding his feelings, even from himself; and he knows that Seunghyun knows this.

“I need to talk to you.”

Seunghyun raises his eyebrows. “You’re doing that just fine.”

“I mean properly.”

“Don’t know if you’re capable of doing that, though.”

It’s clear that Seunghyun’s not going to give him an inch, which is making things a lot harder. Jiyong considers making a snappy comeback, or making a bolt for it. Instead he drains the rest of his drink, chucking the bottle aside before grabbing Seunghyun’s arm and dragging him to one of the dark alcoves.

“I was an idiot,” he starts off, before he can lose his alcohol-fuelled nerve. “I blamed you for what that bitch did, and you didn’t deserve it in the least. I won’t try and make excuses for myself. But I—I kind of shut myself off from the world when I’m freaked out. I’m not very good at accepting help from others, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Yeah, that completely escaped my attention.” Despite the sarcastic tone, Jiyong thinks there’s a tiny flicker of something in Seunghyun’s eyes, and he feels a flare of hope.

“But, um, I can try work on that. I’m going to work on it. At least I can call myself out on being a moody prick, that’s progress, right?” Jiyong tries to keep the whine out of his voice.

“You forgot selfish.”

“Okay, that too.”

“And irrational.”

“…Okay.”

“And—”

“Okay, just fucking forgive me, would you please? This is getting embarrassing.”

Seunghyun is silent. Jiyong holds his breath for a few seconds, for an eternity.

“I’ve forgiven you already,” Seunghyun says at last, slowly. “But I’m not so sure about you.”

“Wha—at?” Jiyong is really regretting the alcohol now, because he feels an inexplicable urge to howl. “What do you mean?”

“You never actually said what you—what I was to you.” Seunghyun fidgets, and now, that was a definite flash of insecurity in his eyes. “That time after rehearsal…”

Jiyong splutters. “Wasn’t it obvious? Merlin’s beard, I thought I was the idiot here.” He hesitates, then decides _what the hell_. “You—I hear your fucking voice everywhere, even if I don’t want to, that’s what you mean to me.” He takes a deep shaky breath. “What about you, huh? What am I to you?”

“Um…” Now Seunghyun is the one avoiding his gaze. “I, uh, when we were learning the Patronus charm, I couldn’t get it all, until I thought about you when you laugh, then—then it worked.”

Jiyong is actually rendered speechless for a moment. Seunghyun seems to take this as a bad sign, and flounders on, “Look, you don’t like hearing my voice, that’s cool, but we can still be friends right, like I’d rather have you as a friend than as nothing at all, honestly—”

“Seunghyun?”

“—yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Which he does, or rather, Jiyong does it for him. For a few seconds—for an eternity—he hears: the sound of garbled chatter and raucous, off-key singing (mental frown at that one), the occasional pop and crackle of someone wielding their wand drunkenly, the sound of Seungri puking his insides into a bucket, the sounds of couples in dark corners other than their own. No, including their own.

And running through it all he hears music.

It’s a tune that he will never forget.


End file.
